Page 70 of Refuge for Flora

Barrett picked up a tomato and took note of the beautiful color and firmness of the flesh. “Can’t complain, can’t complain. Business good for y’all?”

“Oh, yeah. Selling a couple bushel of tomatoes a day and all kinds of potatoes, cukes, squash…”

“Yeah. That squash looks mighty fine. Nice zucchini too.” The baskets of vegetables were filled to overflowing. “And those are beautiful carrots.”

“Yeah, I don’t like ‘em but she insists on ‘em. Says people buy ‘em to make baby food.”

“Well, they do!” his wife barked.

“Okay, okay! Ain’t nobody done that yet,” the man argued back.

His wife glared at him. “You don’t know that!”

Jesus, is that what Flora and I will sound like when we’re that age?The very idea made him smile. “I just get a bag and start filling it up, right?”

“Yeah. Just make sure you don’t mix the vegetables. They’re different prices, so keep ‘em separate,” the farmer instructed.

“Yes, sir.” He picked up a bag from the box nearby and put half a dozen tomatoes in it. In the next bag, he stuck in about ten yellow squash, then got another bag and put in two zucchini.

“You can put them together. They’s the same price,” the woman instructed.

“Okie dokie.” After he’d stuffed the zucchini in the bag with the yellow squash, he picked up another bag and started putting new potatoes in it. He loved those things! Boil them with a little butter and some salt, and Barrett could eat a whole panful by himself. “So anybody around here selling anything more unusual than what y’all got? Maybe some strange melons or weird fruit or something?”

“Not that I know of,” he heard the man say, but when he sneaked a glance from the corner of his eye, the wife was eyeing the old man with a frown.

“Dang. I was hoping for some pomelos or ugly fruit or something. Nothing weird anywhere?”

“Well… There was this one guy who come up here?”

“Floyd?” That made Barrett turn and look directly at them.

“Geraldine, the man asked me a question and I’m-a gonna answer him. So, there was this one feller come up here. Wanted to know if I’d like to buy some gators to sell.”

Play it close to the vest, he warned himself. “Gators? Like real live alligators?”

The man shrugged. “I reckon. That’s what it sounded like.”

“Seriously?”

The man?apparently his name was Floyd?nodded. “Yeah. I was afeared it was one-a y’all tryin’ to trap folks, so I said no. I don’t want no gators to sell, but Iwouldlike to see one. I mean, to see if they’s real and all.”

“Well, yeah. I think so. Did this fella have a name?”

“If’n he did, he didn’t give it to me. Tall, skinny guy with jacked-up teeth. Real bad. Looked like one-a them meth people.”

“Probably was. If he comes back, see if you can find out anything from him, like how to get in touch with him about some gators, but please don’t tell him I was here.” Barrett handed Floyd his business card.

“No, no, I wouldn’t do that. Tell him ‘bout you, I mean. But yeah, if’n he comes back, I’ll ask him. You reckon they’s real?”

Barrett shrugged. “Who knows? I’d just like to find out. After all, you guys don’t want that riffraff hanging around down here in the bottoms, do ya?”

“Oh, no, sir. We surely don’t. Kids go down there and mess around. Don’t want no kid gettin’ hisself chomped by a gator. That’d be awful.”

“It sure would be.”Boy, he’d freak out if he knew about Velma, Barrett thought. “What do I owe you?”

The woman had been weighing vegetables while the men talked. “Looks like thirteen dollars and fifty cents, so just make it thirteen dollars.”

“I’ll do you one better and make it fourteen. How’s that?” Barrett asked and gave the woman his sexiest smile.

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